Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse was a long running comic book series emphasizing stories with the Walt Disney character Mickey Mouse. Goofy and Minnie Mouse make regular appearances, and other Disney characters occasionally do. Mickey's perpetual rival was the criminal Black Pete. Two major influences on Mickey Mouse Magazine were Floyd Gottfredson who wrote and drew the Mickey Mouse daily newspaper strip and, staring in 1950, the drawing of Paul Murry. Gottfredson's daily strips were used to create early comic book stories, however Gottfredson never did work directly for the comic book. His strips were given to publishers, the black and white drawings cropped, expanded and colored for the comic book format.

There were changes in artists, publishers, length, cost, and printing quality over the years. Later years were often reprints of earlier stories, sometimes from Walt Disney's Comics and Stories or other Disney publications. Although magazines called Mickey Mouse were available in many countries, they were not necessarily translations of the American publication, but included their own stories and artists.

By 1950, the format from Dell Comics was 52 pages, with one or two stories, with two one-pages stories at the end, and one at the front. There were no other features or advertisements. The cover price in 1950 was 10 cents. By 1957, the total number of pages had dropped substantially, there were full-page advertisements and other text features.

Before 1963, Gold Key Comics assumed publication. These issues continued to have new stories. In 1966 there were three issues, drawn by Paul Murry and Dan Spiegle, where Mickey became a secret agent and was given suitable attire; excepting Mickey and Goofy, the entire story was drawn in an un-Disney realistic cartoon manner (issues 107 to 109). By 1972 the issues mostly contained reprints. The average paid circulation between September 1969 and September 1970, when the comic was published six times a year, and cost 15 cents, was 223,396.